Today we went to Robbie's, a rustic touristy conglomeration of watery activities and merchandise. We fed the tarpon. Everyone does. It costs $5 to buy a bucket of feeder fish and walk out onto the dock, where all the tarpon for 50 miles gather for free lunch. What a riot! I made friends with a special tarpon in Bonaire at a site called The Cliff. This fish stayed close to me, and when I was photoing jawfish on my last dive (and getting solidly bent) he came over to me and blew a large distinct bubble out of his gill. He said, "You don't belong here" in a friendly way. So I was especially happy to have the chance to feed a mess of them and say thank you!
After that we rented a kayak and floated through a mangrove water trail. We saw a young female crocodile (the guide man who told us the route to follow said she was a she) sunning on a boat hull. And as promised we saw one young nurse shark in the shallows. We didn't see the 5 manatees who live in this grove, and we were indeed disappointed. But swarms of snook, snappers, barracuda, snappers, parrotfish and who knows what else made up for it. So did the osprey flying before us through the cut in the trees, and a diving bird who cruised with us for 15 minutes or so. One thing about Florida, it can be blustery. We worked our fannies off paddling - which we promptly replaced with pizza and cinnamon buns at a wonderful Italian coffee house in Ilsamadora.